marsupial moles
notoryctidae latin

Due to the lack of any field studies regarding the marsupial moles, there is little known about their behavior.

Marsupial moles spend most of their time under ground, coming to the surface only occasionally, probably mostly after rains.

In koalas, wombats and marsupial moles, the pouch opens backward or down.

Similarly, forward facing pouches would not work well for wombats and marsupial moles as they both dig extensively underground.

These are the golden moles of southern Africa and the marsupial moles of Australia.

According to Aboriginal sources, marsupial moles may surface at any time of day, but seem to prefer to do so after rain and in the cooler season.

Marsupial moles (Notoryctidae) is a family of marsupials of the order Notoryctemorphia.

A recent study indicates that remains of marsupial moles have been found in 5% of the cats and foxes faecal pellets examined.

Order Notoryctemorphia (marsupial moles)

Marsupial moles (notoryctids)

The two species of marsupial moles are rare and poorly understood burrowing mammals of the deserts of Western Australia.

On the basis that marsupial moles have some characteristics in common with almost all other marsupials, they were eventually classified as an entirely separate order: the Notoryctemorphia.

Marsupial moles provide a remarkable example of convergent evolution, with moles generally, and with the golden moles of Africa in particular.

This seems to suggest that the olfactory sense plays an important role in the marsupial moles' life, as it would be expected for a creature living in an environment lacking visual stimuli.

Their eyes are non-functional and covered with skin and fur, the ears are just tiny openings, and, like the marsupial moles, they have an enlarged leather-like pad to protect their nostrils.

In Australia, the exceptions include the omnivorous bandicoots (order Peramelemorphia) and the marsupial moles (which eat meat but are very different and are now accorded an order of their own, Notoryctemorphia).

A molehill (or mole-hill, mole mound) is a conical mound of loose soil raised by small burrowing mammals, including moles, but also similar animals such as mole-rats, marsupial moles and voles.

Molecular level analysis in the early 1980s showed the marsupial moles are not closely related to any of the living marsupials, and they appear to have followed a separate line of development for a very long time, at least 50 million years.

The golden moles bear a remarkable resemblance to the marsupial moles of Australia, so much so that, the marsupial/placental divide notwithstanding, arguments were once made that they were related, possibly because they are very primitive placentals and because of the many mole-like specializations.

The zalambdodont molars appear to link it to notoryctid marsupial moles, but detailed study of the teeth of these two groups suggests that they have evolved independently, and Yalkaparidon is anatomically otherwise very different from the marsupial moles.

The Northern Marsupial Mole or Northwestern Marsupial Mole (Notoryctes caurinus) is a species of marsupial in the Notoryctidae family.

Although the Notoryctidae family is poorly represented in the fossil record there is evidence of at least one distinct genus Yalkaparidon, in the early Miocene sediments in the Riversleigh deposit in northern Australia.